


Driver Picks the Music

by Severina



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: community: tv_universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 20:53:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's never really talked to God, but Glenn sends up a little note of thanks to the Big Guy that it wasn't Merle who volunteered to accompany him on this little road trip.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Driver Picks the Music

**Author's Note:**

> First of 5 unconnected stories written for LJ's tv_universe community, for the challenge "Who Said What Now?" The challenge is to incorporate a quote from one show into a story for another show. The quote I used for this story was spoken by Dean Winchester from Supernatural -- "Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole."
> 
> Pre-Series.
> 
> * * *

Atlanta's practically picked clean – at least the outskirts of the city is, the parts where it's still feasible to get in and out without getting mobbed by a couple of hundred walkers or risking the fallout from whatever the army dropped on the city those last final days. Sometimes Glenn wonders what might have happened to them at the camp if the wind had been blowing in a different direction that night. Sometimes he wonders if his parents and sisters were still trapped in the city then – alive but unable to leave, helpless when the deadly fire rained down. 

He shakes his head, pushes the thoughts away. Dwelling on what he can't change has never done him any good. It's the reason he didn't get all bent out of shape when he flunked out at UGA, despite his father's admonitions and his mother's hand-wringing. He wasn't cut out for college life, never had been; tried to tell them that a dozen times but they wouldn't listen. He'd always had faith that his life would sort itself out, one way or another. That some purpose would be revealed if he just waited long enough, was patient enough.

He just never thought that his purpose would be taking point on supply runs on a world populated by the undead. 

Daryl shifts in the driver's seat, propping his arm up on the open window. It serves to remind Glenn that the world isn't inhabited entirely with walking corpses. Some people are left. Like dirty, unkempt hillbillies that would probably rather spit on him than be ferrying him to some little town in the middle of nowhere in the hopes of finding a couple of dented cans of green beans among the refuse. 

Glenn frowns at the wash of shame that fills him at the thought. Uncharitable, his mother would call it. He doesn't know Daryl at all, hasn't said more than two words to the man since he and his brother rode into camp a week ago. Since then Daryl's done more than his share – hunting down animals for their supper, hauling water up from the lake, taking a shift or two on watch on top of the old RV. Maybe he's not the friendliest guy Glenn's ever met, but he's not said an unkind word to anyone – well, except Merle. Glenn's heard Daryl lay into his brother a time or two, usually after Merle got through running his mouth. Glenn definitely doesn’t feel any shame at thinking bad things about Merle Dixon. 

He's never really talked to God, but Glenn sends up a little note of thanks to the Big Guy that it wasn't Merle who volunteered to accompany him on this little road trip.

Glenn leans back on his seat, watches the endless parade of trees outside his window. Mirrors Daryl's position with his arm, then sighs and drops his hands to his lap. Side-glances Daryl, but the silence doesn't seem to be getting to him. His eyes never waver from the road, his face bland and uninterested – though, Glenn has to admit, intriguing in a sort of rough and tumble uncharacteristically handsome kind of way. Glenn realizes with a start that he wouldn't actually mind getting to know the guy. Hear more about him than campfire stories about a bloodsucking dog. But it seems the longer they travel, the harder it is to break the silence and the more uncomfortable it feels.

He works at his bottom lip until his eyes light on the mound of CD's piled haphazardly on the floorboards at his feet, the ones he nearly wiped out on while getting into the truck back at the camp. He nudges the pile with a sneakered foot, glances at Daryl. "Think it's safe enough to put on some music, if the volume's low?"

He takes the lift of Daryl's shoulders and the accompanying grunt as assent, leans down to rummage through the pile and finally comes up with something that doesn't make him want to jump in front of the nearest walker.

The music has barely started before Daryl sniffs, reaches out blindly to flick the CD player off. "Not that shit," he says. "There's some Cash in the glove box. Put that on."

He'd picked Nickelback out of the pile basically as a 'best of a bad lot' option, but Glenn bristles anyway. "I happen to like Nickelback," he lies.

"Too bad," Daryl says. "Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole."

"Nice," Glenn mutters, but he complies, digs around in the glove box until he finds the requested CD and slides it out of the battered case. He wrinkles his nose when the first song comes on, turns to face Daryl. "Why'd you even have a Nickelback CD if you hate them so much?"

"Ain't mine," Daryl says. "Probably belonged to some chick Merle was bangin'."

Glenn shudders, tries to imagine what kind of girl would willingly have sex with Merle Dixon. The image isn't a pleasant one.

"Girls he picked never had a lick of sense," Daryl continues, apparently agreeing with him. "Merle has bad taste in women. Just like the old man."

Glenn leans back in his seat. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the Dixons have had a tough life, a rough life that turned them into rough men. But somewhere along the line there must have been good, even if it didn't come from his racist brother. Daryl can be short-tempered – he's seen enough of him around camp to know that – but he can also be kind, helpful. Daryl wouldn't be sitting beside him right now, putting his life on the line to search for food for a bunch of people he barely knows, if that wasn't the case. That had to come from somewhere.

He swivels his head. "Well, your father picked your mother. So he must have done something right."

He sees Daryl's gaze flick to his, his shoulders tense; sees something surprised yet wary on the other man's face before he quickly turns his attention back to the road. After a moment Daryl's hands relax on the wheel; another moment and the frown lines on his forehead smooth out. Glenn sits up straighter in his seat when he sees a flash of something through Daryl's window, a single figure in a ripped sundress staggering along in the dirt at the side of the road. They're past the walker before it has time to stumble toward them, but the sight of it means that they're nearing the town. That in a few minutes they'll be creeping through the streets, every sense on high alert. 

No matter how many times he does this – no matter how many forays he makes into abandoned storefronts and back alleys, digging through the detritus for anything salvageable, ducking behind counters and holding his breath when the geeks stagger by – it never fails to send a shiver down his spine, to make goose bumps stand out on his skin.

Glenn glances back toward Daryl, but the man looks just as calm as he always does. He juts his chin, squints at him across the expanse of the seat. "You really like Nickelback?" he asks.

Glenn blinks, tries to find the tail of the previous conversation. Finally he shrugs. "No," he admits. "Just reminds me of my sister. She always had bad taste, too."

"Might still," Daryl says.

It's not until that moment that Glenn realizes that he's spoken of Celia in the past tense. That sometime in the past three weeks he's come to accept that she's gone, that her and Polly and his parents are truly lost to him. He no longer believes that they're holed up somewhere, eking out a new life without him. He now only hopes that their deaths came quickly. He only hopes that they're at peace.

"No," he says softly. "Not anymore."

They travel another mile before Daryl reaches over to slide the Johnny Cash CD out of the player, replaces it with Nickelback without ever taking his eyes away from the road. They listen to Chad Kroeger wail in silence, and it's not uncomfortable at all.


End file.
